Three nights in Nome, two full days exploring the roads….I thought I would share some random reflections.

Nome feels remote, even though it’s connected by daily air service to Anchorage. You can’t drive here, you fly. It brought on a weird mix of reverie to my younger years, like a cross between a southern Oklahoma oil town with a remote Colorado mining town. Nome is closer to Russia than the lower 48 (Seattle). It is believed that Nome got its name from a misunderstanding and bad handwriting. The cartographer put “Name?” On a map, and it was misinterpreted to be Nome.

It takes a Herculean effort to get even basic things here. Airplane travel takes on a different dimension. It’s used not only to transport people and personal goods, but also things you need to live life….every single day. People baggage check large plastic tubs, duct taped all the way around, that are filled with basic ordinary items. A woman on our flight out, carried on a large bakery type of box – filled with 5 dozen eggs. She paid $10 for the whole thing…it was worth the effort to carry them onboard and sit with them on her lap for the 90 minute flight. And then she carried them down 2 flights of stairs, in the wind, as we deplaned. I’m glad we didn’t have an impromptu performance art experience that involved a reinterpretation of scrambled eggs.

Nomeites recycle everything; rusty equipment lines the road, and every home is up on blocks because of the permafrost. Stuff that seems randomly scattered on the ground takes on a new dimension when you realize that it could be repurposed for a critical need, or just something that will make someone’s life a little easier.

All the roads are dirt or gravel. It’s really dusty. There is less dust on the car, than in the crevices of the car. Open a door and you will find inches of dirt piled up creating a mini-crevasse to the interior. When we returned to the hotel, you could not even read the license plate number through the caked on dirt. Two guys washed every rental car that was checked in engaging in a the quintessential definition of “an exercise of futility”.

Nome was founded on a gold rush, and it’s still all about the gold. At breakfast this morning, miners declared “gold fever” was in full swing. Speaking of restaurants, there are only a few, with limited (or too many menu options), and most have 1-3 tables that seat 4 and you are expected to share. Oh, and there is only 1 cook. Muster up your patience and settle in…..meals are long, and not because there are many courses and you are engaged in riveting conversation, it’s because the cook is overwhelmed.

Now, layer on the birders and the restaurants get crushed. We saw at least three large groups of birders in town and on the roads outside of Nome on bird watching tours. Outfitted with binoculars and notebooks, they reported on what they saw at the end of each day in the lobby of the hotel. One-by-one they would share and check items off the proverbial bird list. If I understand correctly, birders seek out elusive “lifers”. These are birds you see once in a lifetime and share with great enthusiasm. I have to admit when I started to research the vacation habits of a birder, I started to have FOMO thinking about the exotic birds I missed seeing while I was here.

Trees are sparse, and the tundra (a vast treeless plain with permanently frozen subsoil surrounded by stunning mountains), reminds me of a variation of the desert. It’s sparse and beautiful. The flowers are small and pretty – you don’t see them immediately. You have to get out of your car and take a few steps, look down, and you realize the pale color you saw from the car, is not stone, but a grouping of tiny pink flowers interlaced with silvery white lichen.

Up here near the arctic circle (we are only 150 miles south) we are getting 22 hours (21 hours and 41 minutes to be exact) of light a day. It’s disorienting to wake up in the middle of the night to use the facilities, see bright sky and realize you haven’t overslept and it’s only 1:00 AM.

Nome is the final stop of the Iditarod. It is probably the thing that most people identify most with Alaska. 14 dogs (at the start of the race) pulling a sled through a snow storm 1,049 miles in an event that costs each participant about $15,000-$22,000 and requires supplies to be airlifted into checkpoints along the way. Villagers are helpful and supportive as they personally deliver these supplies to racers as they pass through. Racers complete the course in about 8-15 days. Think about that, 15 days in sub-zero temperatures, soul-crushing winds, and blinding blizzards with the responsibility of 14 dogs that need special high-calorie food and care.

One last quirky thing about Nome. When we got into the taxi after arriving at the air terminal, the driver informed us happily, “We don’t use seatbelts here”, as we struggled trying to locate them. Except, apparently, when there is a doctor in the car and he got the proverbial lecture.